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though the effectiveness of this attention has not been made finally clear yet. However, it is apparent
that ESP courses are becoming a trend in polytechnic universities, owing to the educational
authorities promotions and incentives. Furthermore, a genre approach is highly compatible with the
writing needs of different professions, as they are specific, relevant and targeted (Hyland, 2007); it is
a suitable approach for connecting language with appropriate contexts. In addition, the effectiveness
of genre-based approaches to teaching ESP writing has been evidenced in Taiwan (Lee & Chen, 2009)
as well in other Asian settings. Based on these findings, there is a strong reason for positing that a
genre-based approach could also be an appropriate direction for teaching ESP writing courses in
Taiwan. It is in light of considerations such as these that genre-based writing instruction (GBWI) was
implemented in an ESP course, and looked into how the learners perceived GBWI. It is hoped that
this investigation can shed light on researching and teaching ESP courses in Asian EFL settings.

Literature Review
The effectiveness and challenges of genre-based writing instruction (GBWI)
Genre, according to Hyland (2004), nowadays has a broad inclusion beyond its traditional literary
texts. Instead, it can refer to professional, academic and even everyday forms of speech acts and
writing texts, and a study of it stresses the connection between form and context, and the
importance of description and analysis. Thus, analysing genre explores specific uses of language
and focuses on describing how people use language to engage in specific recurring situations within
discourse communities (Swales, 1990). It offers language educators useful ways of treating
conventionalised aspects of texts as well as opportunities to design activities to raise learners genre
awareness, which can potentially make them better writers (Hyland, 2004; Paltridge, 2001).
Indeed, genre analysis or corpus-based research on teaching English, especially the
form-focused approach, has been studied a great deal in both English for academic purposes (e.g.
Carstens, 2008; Cheng, 2006; Hyland, 2010; Hyon, 2008; Johns, 2008; Samraj & Monk, 2008) and
English for occupational purposes (e.g. Hafner, 2010; Karlsson, 2009; Matt, 2007; Osman, 2008).
Furthermore, much of the research upholds the effectiveness of this approach (Lee & Chen, 2009).
Genre-based approaches (GBA) can provide learners with real world models for writing, which can
better stimulate their interest and thus enhance their confidence in coping with specific writing tasks
(Osman, 2008). Furthermore, as Hyland argues (2004, p.18), GBA offers ESP learners explicit and
systematic explanations of the ways language functions in social context. With GBA, students learn
not only the relevant language forms of a genre but also the context in which language is used, which
helps learners acquire the specialist culture as well (Bhatia, 1997). Besides, it can provide ESP
practitioners with insights into how a particular language is used by its members in a discourse
community. As Paltridge (2001) argues, teaching genres can provide learners with the knowledge
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and skills they need to communicate successfully. Besides, it also provides them with access to
socially powerful forms of language. Therefore, GBA can potentially accommodate both ESP
practitioners and learners needs.
Nevertheless, the use of GBA poses a number of challenges that must be faced. The major
critique is that it is often seen as offering teachers and learners a formulaic, mechanical, rigid,
conformable, restrictive, and prescriptive how-to-do list (e.g. Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998; Raimes,
1991). This poses the danger that both parties may fail to recognise variations, choices and constraints
within a specific genre; thus, teachers should be aware of what the claims of the effectiveness of GBA
actually entail (Belcher, 2004). Dudley-Evans (2002, p. 235) cautions teachers to not overly rely on a
set of moves of a given genre because this approach will not confront many of the day-to-day
problems students encounter when writing the actual genres. Furthermore, this could hinder both
teachers and learners critical thinking skills, and thus prevent them from generating innovative
solutions to responding to changing contexts. Hence, instead of teaching fixed structural patterns or
forms, it would be more useful to try to impart tendencies and trends.
In addition, for EFL teachers who are taking on the roles of ESP practitioners, adopting GBA may
make them face a number of additional dilemmas. For instance, instructors are expected to be
organisers, coaches, cultural resources, and providers of feedback and discipline knowledge, which
would make them confused and anxious, as these additional roles are different from what they were
traditionally expected to be (Wennerstrom, 2003; Yang, 2009). Language teachers have to be
content- and culture-knowers regarding other academic disciplines or occupations. How teachers can
be become qualified as ESP practitioners becomes a crucial issue. It is hoped that the motivation for
making this transition will increase as more and more studies reporting on the effectiveness of GBA
toward writing come to light (Osman, 2008).

The evaluation of GBWI
To gauge the effectiveness of GBWI, many investigations placed the students into two groups i.e. the
experimental group instructed with GBWI and the control group taught with traditional approaches.
Most of these studies confirmed that the experimental group achieved the following: first of all,
participants writing significantly improved. In addition, they also showed an increase in the use of
the communicative moves in their writing. Besides, they actively participated in the class activities,
and also obtained explicit knowledge about English and the genres taught. These achievements
helped them form positive attitudes towards GBWI accordingly (see examples as Cheng, 2008;
Emilia, 2005; Krisnachinda, 2006).
Besides, some researchers have proposed the integration of GBA with other approaches in order
to maximise its effectiveness. For example, Lin (2006) initiated a Vygotskian GBA model (see

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Vygotsky, 1978), which emphasised the co-construction of knowledge and skills of genre context by
teachers and students. His approach led students to show an increasing confidence in, and command
of, their writing ability. Also, Kim and Kim (2005), Gao (2007), and Tang, Zhang and Dong (2009)
have suggested conducting an eclectic GBA integrated with other approaches such as cooperative,
process, product or process-genre approaches, aiming to mitigate the concern that GBA may
overemphasise product and accuracy. They have argued for the importance of scaffolding language
and learning, allowing language use to serve as creative self-expression, and providing meaningful
responses, diverse types of feedback and formative assessment. Such integration has the potential to
highlight the significance of writing as a process leading to a product, and also contextualises the
writing to help the audience better understand the purpose of the writing (Hung, 2008).

Gaps in the literature
Most of the above investigations have tended to emphasize what learners learn at the expense of how
they learn to write, but ignored the importance of more learner-focused research. Thus, this project
attempts to address this gap by attending to both the writing output and the students perceptions of
their writing development. The second gap is the current lack of research on the effectiveness of GBA
and ESP writing in the context of Taiwanese universities. These university students have been shown
to have lower proficiency and motivation for writing English. In order to address this concern, this
study argues that adopting genre-based approaches to teaching ESP writing courses may be more
valuable for university students. It is hoped that the results of this study can offer new directions for
future research and lead to the adoption of GBA in similar settings.

Methodology
Participants and procedures
The study was carried out at a national university in Taiwan. Twenty-four fourth-year English majors
were enrolled in the compulsory course English Writing for Hospitality and Tourism, and all agreed
to participate in this research. This university is a well-known institute island-wide owing to its
sandwich curriculum design, wherein the students are required to have an internship placement
during their third year, off campus in relevant domestic or international hospitality and tourism
industries. Then, the students return to the university in their fourth year to resume their studies.
Nineteen of the participants completed their internship placements in foreign countries, including
England, Singapore, Canada, and Macau, while the rest stayed in Taiwan for their placements.
The 2-hour per week course lasted for 18 weeks from September 2010 to January 2011. The
course was divided into three phases, each of which had one required assignment i.e. hotel, tourist
attraction, and holiday brochures. Each of the three cycles followed identical procedural instructions.

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First, students read authentic brochures, identified the sub-genres along with their features, analysed
the obligatory and optional moves, and then submitted their first drafts. Next, the instructor analysed
the lexis used in the authentic texts and the students writing, and the students were subsequently
required to modify the inappropriate or wrong lexis, moves, and grammar, and then resubmitted a
revised version. Then, this second version underwent the same set of procedures to be revised for a
second time. The subsequent third version was used as the final product. In other words, each
students self-designed brochure should be revised and resubmitted two times (termed as V1, V2, and
V3 in this study). Therefore, there were 72 texts in total for each type of brochure (see a sample in
Appendix A).
After the end of a cycle, the instructor graded the writings based on the criteria of content, word
use, moves arrangement, and grammatical usages. Furthermore, non-Chinese readers were asked to
evaluate the texts as well. They were provided with three versions of one brochure type and were
asked to decide on the best version in terms of the authenticity of the text as well as the degree to
which the brochure succeeded in stimulating their interest in visiting/purchasing the product. At the
end of the course, the 24 students were placed into four groups, with an average of six members per
group, according to their academic performance in the university, in order to be interviewed by the
researcher in Chinese. The rationale for this grouping was to investigate whether the students
academic achievement was correlated with their performance and attitudes towards genre-based
writing instructions. Each group interview was conducted for half an hour during the 18
th
week of the
course.

Research instruments and data analysis
On the basis of the above procedures, two different kinds of data were collected for analysis. The first
type is quantitative data, coming from the lexis used in the authentic texts and the students texts.
After the texts were gathered, all the words in the authentic and students texts were analysed using
the computer tool Wordsmith v.5.0 (WS) (Scott, 2008). Then, the second step was to wordlist. The
two major categories of the texts were imported to generate two separate wordlists.
Next, keywording was undertaken, following similar procedures as wordlisting. The major
difference lies in the fact that there must be two word-lists in order to generate a keyword list: one is
the study/main corpus from which keywords are identified, and the other is a wordlist serving as the
reference/comparison corpus. The reason it requires two different corpora is that keywording
operates via examining the items of unusual frequency (Scott & Tribble, 2006), and this helps
researchers locate the specific words in one genre in comparison with a reference corpus.
To generate the keywords in each type of brochure, the British National Corpus (BNC) was used
as the reference corpus and the wordlist of the authentic texts was used as the study corpus. Similarly,

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to generate the students overused and underused keywords, the main corpus is the wordlist of their
texts and the comparison corpus is the wordlist of the authentic texts. In other words, the authentic
texts serve as the study corpus in this first keywording and the comparison corpus in the second
operation.
These two different keyword lists have different implications. On one hand, the keywords
generated from the authentic texts are essential for characterizing the distinctive lexis of a particular
register/genre. On the other hand, the overused keywords generated from the students texts, i.e. those
words appearing at a markedly higher frequency, should be reduced in students usage; the underused
keywords, conversely, need to have more attention in order to encourage a greater use of them.
The second type of data is qualitative data, taken from the readers evaluations and the
interviews with the students. The evaluators choices were calculated and tabulated by EXCEL, and
their written comments were encoded under various headings. The voice-recorded interviews were
translated into English and the transcription was looked over by a Taiwanese EFL instructor to check
the veracity of the Chinese-English translation, and, in addition, was proofread by another native EFL
instructor to check the accuracy of the English translated text. Next, the translated texts were
processed by using the software Weft QDA (Fenton, 2006). Similarly, the coding was also checked
by the two aforementioned colleagues. The study applied ground theory, which is extensively used to
treat the qualitative data in coding data with similar concepts into various categories (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967).

Results and Discussion
Results from the quantitative keywords analysis
First, the statistics of the three phases of key word use, which have also been reported in other studies
(Yang, 2011 a.b.c.), are provided in Tables 1 and 2 for cross-reference.

Table1: The different/distinct words (DW) and keywords (KW) in authentic texts (AT) and student
texts (ST)
Hotels Tourist attractions Holidays
Authentic texts
Average tokens 544 651 719,926
Distinct words 4,316 6,414 20,832
Keywords
1
602 728 8,049
DW per 100 tokens 14.97 12.62 0.60
KW per 100 tokens 2.08 1.43 0.23

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Student texts
Average tokens 590 550 877
Average DW 2,140 2,756 3,578
1
With reference to BNC

Table 2: The keywords (KW) in the three versions of each phase in student texts (ST)
Version 1 Version 2 Version 3
Hotels
Keywords
1
202/ 20 266/16 270/ 16
DW per 100 tokens 18.41 17.85 17.32
KW per 100 tokens 2.08/ 0.19 1.43/ 0.12 0.23/ 0.11
Tourist attractions
Keywords
1
260/ 58 284/ 70 293/ 69
DW per 100 tokens 21.82 20.68 20.35
KW per 100 tokens 2.08/ 0.46 2.12/ 0.52 2.13/ 0.50
Holidays
Keywords
1
259/ 262 463/ 437 477/ 449
DW per 100 tokens 23.29 15.74 15.42
KW per 100 tokens 2.25/ 2.27 1.80/ 1.70 1.82/ 1.72
1
With reference to BNC and authentic texts (AT) respectively

From the above statistics, we can ascertain that the students tended to use less tokens in their
texts compared to the authentic ones except for the hotel brochure, where the students wrote more
words than those in the authentic texts by 46 tokens. During the interviews it was found out that they
had initially assumed that the more words they used, the higher their grades for the texts would be;
therefore, they lengthened the writing purposefully. Secondly, the students texts on average used
more distinct words than the authentic writings, which indicates that the students tried to demonstrate
their ability to use a wide variety of words. However, the vocabulary they used tended not to be the
key words used in authentic texts.
Comparing the students usages to those of the reference corpus keyword list, the students were
requested to reduce their use of the overused words in their texts and to increase those of the
underused words during the process of composing their three versions. Nevertheless, except for the
hotel brochure worked on students, overused key words did not drop significantly across the three

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versions, not even with the teachers explicit instruction in the use of authentic words. In fact, the
numbers of the overused key words in every 100 tokens of the students writings are almost identical.
The above results imply that the students ability to use lexis optimally is still limited. They do
not have a clear idea of what the appropriate words should be in order to better meet readers
expectations. Possible reasons for this are that they have not learnt these key words yet, or that they
favour those words they are used to and confident in using. This research is not designed for the
purpose of claiming that the students overused words should all be eliminated merely; indeed, such a
goal would be met with a great deal of resistance, since English is commonly regarded as a lingua
franca (or an international language), and EFL learners will inevitably compose their writing under
the influences of their respective cultures and backgrounds. However, this study argues that it would
behove ESP learners to acquire and use the key words of the genres they are working with if they
hope to engage in effective communication in a professional community, for these word choices and
constraints are among the salient features of a genre text that makes the communication authentic and
effective.
Based on the above findings, GBWI seemingly did not adequately help students in reaching the
instructional aims of this course. However, it is essential to bear in mind that the students were only
given six weeks to complete the three versions of one brochure, which may have been an insufficient
amount of time for students to make adequate revisions. Furthermore, this was the first time that these
students were taught using a GBA mode; the unfamiliarity with the teaching method might have
influenced their performance as well. Hence, focusing exclusively on the quantitative results cannot
adequately portray the complexities involved in conducting this course. The following qualitative
data offer a totally different perspective on how the effectiveness of this course should be evaluated.

Results from the evaluators feedback
Table 3 shows that nearly all of the 3
rd
version of each brochure were regarded as better than the other
two by the evaluators. The written comments can be divided into two evaluative categories:
encouraging recognitions and pending problems. Generally speaking, the evaluators gave more
positive comments than negative ones, and their comments mainly address two features of the texts:
namely, content and layout. Table 4 exemplifies these comments.


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Table 3: The percentages of the non-Chinese speakers choices of the better brochure
Version 1 Version 2 Version 3 Readers (%)
AUN
1
MOT AUN MOT AUN MOT EL1 EL2
Hotel 4.16 4.16 4.16 4.16 91.66 91.66 66.66 33.33
Attraction 0 0 8.32 8.32 91.66 91.66 66.66 33.33
Holiday 0 0 4 4 96 96 87.5 12.5
1
AUN: authenticity of text, MOT: motivation to visit, EL1: English as the 1
st
language, EL2:
English as the second/foreign language.

Table 4: An excerpt of the readers written comments on the students texts
Encouraging Recognitions Pending Problems
- It is easier to read, colourful and more attractive.
- Its interesting and easy to read.
- It looks good and very Chinese style.
- It looked appealing.
- Interesting design, informative and appealing.
- Content is easy to read and interesting activities.
- The pictures are presented well. It is very
eye-catching leaflet.
- Informative and educational, nice touch of
promotional content.
- It sounds interesting, looks good and lovely
pictures make it appealing.

- The more pictures will attract more.
- A bit distracting to read with many colours.
- I think you wrote too much about history.
- You need some more annual events or
accommodation information.
- You can add more selling points.
- You should focus on itinerary.
- You should provide more activities and other
information.
- You should explain more about the
configuration.
- You can add more routes and ways about how to
arrive, not just information.

The choices made by the evaluators confirmed that the 3
rd
version of each brochure was thought
of as the most authentic version of each text, as well as the one held to be most likely to motivate
readers. Nevertheless, the study is unable to claim that the above achievements are the result of using
GBWI. After all, it is highly likely that revised products will tend to be of better quality than earlier
drafts, due to the instructors feedback on word choices and grammar usages and the students
subsequent alterations. Indeed, the results given here cannot apparently prove that the relationship

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between conducting GBWI and the learners writing performance is positively correlative or causal.
Thus, having access to learners perceptions of their learning, and whether they felt that they have
made improvements, can provide a much-needed additional point of triangulation and allow for the
conveyance of a more nuanced learning narrative.

Results from the interviews
The participants perceptions of the features of GBWI
When asked how they perceived GBWI, the students responded that GBWI is a theme-focused,
practical, analytical, profession-oriented, deeper, varied, procedural, creative, topic-based, applied,
lively, and useful teaching method rather than a traditional, formulaic, fixed and academy-oriented
instruction. For instance, one of the respondents (A1) said,
GBWI requires us to do a lot of analysis on moves and lexis, which makes us think deeper.
Besides, it is relevant to your future needs.
Indeed, this statement matches quite closely claims made in the literature: for example, it
includes a great number of the positive features of other teaching syllabi such as process-based,
topic-based or function-based syllabus (Ur, 1996). Conversely, criticisms of GBA do not appear in
the comments given by the respondents; instead, these sorts of critiques were largely confined to their
perception of their previous experiences of other approaches to writing instruction. For instance, a
female student (A5) said,
The previous instruction is more academic. The teacher would give us a topic and a
model, and then we simply followed the examples provided in the textbook to imitate it.

Based on their replies, it would appear that the students prefer GBWI to their previous writing
instruction.

The gains from GBWI
When asked what they obtained from GBWI, the respondents replied that it brought them a number of
extra benefits in addition to improving their writing. Their responses can be grouped into three
categories: cognitive reinforcements, affective reflections, and psychomotor transformation. In the
first category, the interviewees explained that GBWI helped them to evaluate writing with a more
creative approach, comprehend what a genre is, apply what they have written to what they may need
to write in the future, develop the body of a text in an organised way, differentiate word usages, and
clarify the job duties in industries.
The category affective reflections refers to the ways in which students felt that GBWI
enhanced their positive emotional reception of the approach. Summaries of this category are of the

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sort: GBWI has made them feel more confident and helps them to gain a sense of achievement
accordingly, feel self-pride in terms of what they have written and can write in class, contemplate
readers positions and expectations, and finally own a sense of participation and involvement in class
during analysing, sharing, discussing or conferencing.
The last category refers to the changes in the learners behaviours or habits due to their
experience with the use of GBWI. For instance, an interviewee (B2) stated,
GBWI makes me actively respond to English H&T brochures in my daily life. Hereafter,
I am more willingly to pick up one and read it through.

Another student (C4) also commented that,
GBWI makes me to think deeply whenever I am writing, especially from the angles of the
target cultures, and hence would do more research about them.

In a word, the students believed that GBWI can increase confidence and positively affect their
thoughts, feelings and behaviours insofar as it is a guided, analytical, sequenced, relevant, and
motivating method for teaching writing.

An extra gain in understanding professionals
Most of the interviewees responded that they had a clearer idea of what hospitality and tourism (H&T)
industries are like after taking the course, though some of them admitted to still being uncertain about
it. The obvious changes lie in role awareness and cognition changes. In terms of the cognition
changes, they explained that after the course, they realised the main purpose of an H&T text is to
inform & promote, mind the gaps in contextual differences in terms of interest selection, event
arrangement, activity design, cultural highlights, bonus adding, educational values, or family
concerns, and attend to the importance of publishing prices and the necessity of designing an
itinerary.
With regard to the role change, several interviewees talked about the role awareness of the
relationship between buyer and seller, and between writer and audience (e.g. A2, A5, B4 or D3),
which indicates they realise that they should not write based on what they perceive is right in a
situation devoid of a clearly-specified context, but rather that they should better attend to the sellers,
the buyers and the audiences needs respectively. It is likely that the students internship placement
in H&T industries during their 3
rd
-year, coupled with the genre-analysing tasks in the course as
recommended by Paltridge (2001), have facilitated this role awareness. This transformation makes it
more likely that the students will accommodate different stakeholders interests throughout their

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writing and develop the capability to reflect on their writing procedures, while also being helped to
attain competency in writing a specific text genre.

The aspects improved in their writing
Nearly all of the interviewees agreed that their writing ability had progressed to some extent.
When further asked in which aspects of their writing these improvements could be more
explicitly shown, their responses can be categorised into three groups, namely form, content
and writing techniques. For instance, several students explained that they would try to make use
of a greater number of synonymous word choices to fit the context rather than using the same
word throughout the entire text.
However, some students also expressed the opinion that they became overly cautious about what
they would write. This gave them an aversion to taking risks. As two of the respondents (A1 and A5)
both remarked:
One deficit of GBWI is that I become excessively careful about the words I will choose
and this somewhat hinders me from writing what is my mind.

Each genre has its features which help to distinguish it from other genres, and usually these
textual features are form- and content-related. Thus, ESP teachers should instruct students about these
components explicitly in a GBWI course; nevertheless, they should also address the issue of allowing
oneself to make choices and even encourage creativity rather than overemphasising constraints and
conventions.

Writers learning attitudes in a GBWI course
The answers to this question varied across the groups. Generally, the higher level achievers the
students were, the more autonomous learning attitudes they had.
For example, a female student (A6) said,
After several cycles of teachers instructions, I have already internalised the procedure of
GBWI and known how to design an H&T brochure to complete the assignment
spontaneously.

However, student D3 said that she participated in the class passively. Though a number of
respondents in groups C and D expressed the opinion that their learning attitudes were passive at the
beginning, they went on to note that their attitudes became more and more autonomous after they saw
their peers productions, which spurred them on to want to do better. These divided responses

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indicate the possibility that GBWI is apparently more suitable for or preferred by higher-achieving
students.

Writers satisfaction with their performance in the course
Only 3 out of 24 expressed dissatisfaction. Those who showed satisfaction mainly argued that they
obtained a sense of achievement after completing their texts, while those who were not satisfied
with their performance attributed the causes to their unfamiliarity with the genre text and poor
English proficiency.
The following is representative of the positive comments:
I feel more and more confident about my writing and cannot wait to share my ideas with
others. (C1)

Yet, some more cautionary remarks run more along these lines:
I am not very satisfied with my performance because my English words and grammar are
not professional enough to meet what H&T industries require. I believe I still need more
practices when I enter the job market. (D4)

The pressure of insufficient time made some participants, especially the lower-achievers,
anxious about their work progress and final production, and this might have led these students to form
an unfavourable impression of GBWI. Secondly, for the lower-achievers, they tend to be less
confident about themselves and would inevitably question their own production, even it is
satisfactory enough. It is argued that arranging an orientation to GBA prior to its implementation, and
allowing ample time for composing texts, would be beneficial for helping to ease writers anxiety,
and to build up confidence, especially if GBWI is unfamiliar to students.

The difficulties students confronted in the course
The opinions were coded into four areas: limited linguistic knowledge, affective uncertainty and
anxiety, insufficient content knowledge, and inadequate technology skills. Indeed, an ESP course
always involves two components: language skills and subject content. A common difficulty for ESP
learners is their level of English proficiency, which is often not high enough to produce a well-written
compositionat least not without a great deal of support and scaffolding. The second major difficulty
is the insufficiency of content knowledge. For the participants in this study, lack of content
knowledge is a potential source of difficulty insofar as they may not have had a sufficiently thorough
grounding in professional knowledge. As one of the interviewees (B3) explained:

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We did not have the experiences of this profession previously, and it is hard for us to write
something very professional about this industry such as the T&C (Terms & Conditions)
section.

Therefore, conducting a GBWI course may also require the instructor to address the disciplinary
content rather than overly focusing on the linguistic level. Building up ESP learners content
knowledge can help them to lessen their worries, and thus increase their confidence in their writing as
well. In any case, it is important to see these challenges in the context of the fact that a majority of the
participants confirmed the effectiveness of GBWI and held positive attitudes towards it.

Implications and conclusion
Based on the above results and discussions, the study proposes the following three implications. First
of all, the evaluation of effectiveness should be conducted in a more multi-dimensional way. That is,
relying solely on either quantitative or qualitative methods may not provide a complete picture, and
so triangulation is desirable. In this study, the quantitative data cast doubt on the effectiveness of
GBA, as the tendency of students to use personally preferred lexis at the expense of those deemed
more appropriate, according to corpus data, which did not significantly lessen even after the
instructors explicit intervention. On the other hand, the effectiveness of GBA is supported on the
basis of the qualitative data, which demonstrate totally opposite results. The students positive
attitudes, together with the evaluators affirmative comments, point to the usefulness and
effectiveness of GBWI. Hence, it is argued that to properly evaluate a genre-based course, the
assessment tools should come from various sources in order to draw more reliable conclusions.
Secondly, the concern regarding whether writers can be autonomous learners under GBWI
apparently is still unanswered. In the study, the participants perceptions are fairly evenly-divided.
Furthermore, a number of controversies may arise if GBWI is only suitable for high-achieving
students, or if GBWI is especially well-suited to settings where learning from or replying on model
exemplars is highly emphasised, such as in the Confucian-heritage societies of Taiwan, Hong Kong
or China. Indeed, these issues need to be further researched; in any case, it seems highly likely that the
implementation of GBA will require allowances and alterations to be made in order to fit different
cultural contexts and pedagogical needs. In addition, the students responses also reflect the fact that
learners are very complex, and so more research on how they develop as writers and learners under
GBA is imperative. Like Cheng (2006) asserts, future studies on the effectiveness of GBA should be
more learner-centred, context-sensitive and genre-oriented, instead of merely reporting on
instructional tasks.

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Finally, this study argues that in fact GBA can be applied not only to advanced English learners,
but also to intermediate students or beginners. The participants in the study showed very satisfactory
performance by the end of the course, even though their English proficiency is traditionally
considered to be lower than that of traditional university students. In fact, GBA is posited to be
suitable for both polytechnic and traditional university students, precisely because their majors are
largely professional- or occupation-oriented. If ESP courses are supposed to help students meet their
educational goals and to show them the relevance of their instruction to their future needs, GBA can
serve as a motivational tool for English learning in the ESP classroom. Of course, the shifts in English
education from EGP to ESP require the participation and approval of all stakeholders, and it is
particularly imperative that EFL teachers be aware of the changes they will need to make to their
instruction. Indeed, how to convert the traditional role of an EFL teacher to that of an ESP practitioner
requires a great deal of understanding and determination, and this is surely one of the toughest hurdles
to be faced during the planning and executing of genre-based ESP courses (Wennerstrom, 2003;
Yang, 2009).
In conclusion, this study examines the effectiveness of a genre-based ESP writing course by
adopting word analysis to generate quantitative data, and follow-up interviews to probe the
participants perceptions and attitudes towards GBWI. The results of the quantitative data show that
the participants did not considerably decrease their overuse of personally-preferred key words, but
they did increase their use of the key words as used in authentic texts. As for the findings based on the
interviews, a majority of students confirmed that they became better writers after the course, though
some of them were still uncertain of its effectiveness regarding the effects on their learning progress.
Overall, the students in the project not only learned linguistic and contextual knowledge of the genre
taught, but also were able to reflect on their learning in a critical way. Hence, this study proposes that
the implementation of GBA in college English writing courses be not only feasible but also desirable
in Taiwanese universities or in other Chinese and Asian contexts. For EFL learners who are at risk of
being demoralized and unmotivated by more traditional EGP approaches, GBA has the potential to
provide these learners with an approach which attempts to combine course content with future
professional needs.

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192

Appendix A: The third version of a students tourist attraction brochure


193

The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly
December 2012
Volume 14, Issue 4

Senior Editors:
Paul Robertson and Roger Nunn


2

Published by the Asian EFL Journal Press

Asian EFL Journal Press
A Division of Time Taylor International Ltd

http://www.asian-efl-journal.com

Asian EFL Journal Press 2012

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of the Asian EFL Journal Press.

No unauthorized photocopying

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the Asian EFL Journal.
editor@asian-efl-journal.com

Publisher: Dr. Paul Robertson
Chief Editor: Dr. Roger Nunn
Production Editor: Robert Baird

ISSN 1738-1460


3

Table of Contents:

Foreword by Robert Baird 5-8

1. . 9-38
- Revisiting English in Thailand
2. Shin-Mei Kao and Wang-Chi Weng........ 39-68
- Do You Understand?: An Analysis of Native and Non-native EFL Teachers
Questioning Patterns at a Taiwanese Cram School
3. Luca Rognoni and Carla Cristina Munhoz Xavier............... 69-80
- Thematic Clustering in Second Language Vocabulary Learning:
Scenarios versus Mental Scenes Development
4. Vahid Aryadoust. .. 81-106
- Using Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment to Model the Underlying Structure of a
Listening Test: A Sub-Skill-Based Approach
5. Angelia Lu................................................................ 107-133
- Transitivity Shifts in Academic Writing
6. Paul Underwood and Matthew Wallace .. 134-152
- The Effects of Instruction in Reduced Forms on the Performance of
Low-Proficiency EFL University Students
7. Hui-ju Liu .. 153-173
- Exploring Academic Self-Concept among Learners with Foreign Language
Anxiety
8. Wen-hsien Yang. .. 174-193
- Evaluating the Effectiveness of Genre-Based Instruction: A Writing Course of
English for Hospitality and Tourism


4

Book Reviews

1. Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues.
Ken Hyland & Fiona Hyland (Eds).
Reviewed by Aysha Viswamohan.......... 194-195
2. Diagnosing Foreign language Proficiency: The Interface Between Learning
and Assessment
Charles J. Alderson.
Reviewed by Deepti Gupta......... 196-197
3. Language Teacher Research in Africa
Thomas S. C. Farrell and Leketi Makalela (Eds).
Reviewed by Iris F. Levitis 198-199
4. An Introduction to Conversation Analysis
A. J. Liddicoat.
Reviewed by Hayriye Kayi..... 200-201

Asian EFL Journal editorial information and guidelines... 202-210

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